Going For Gold

[poliphilo]

 We had the telly on yesterday morning. We saw some swimming and some badminton. Then we saw a middle-aged horseman in a top hat riding round in circles with his head bobbing up and down like one of those noddy dogs people have in the back windows of their cars. The name of this particular "sport" is dressage.

Swimming, badminton, horseback riding while dressed like a time traveller from the 1890s- these are all minority interests. Normally they wouldn't get on TV at all. But because it's the Olympics we're supposed to have developed an overnight passion for them. Well, I haven't. 

The same goes for the sailing. My parents had a sailboat once and my mother still remembers how I nearly ran it into an enormous, rusty, old buoy. I hated sailing. It's a sport- like many of the Olympic sports- only open to people with bags and bags of money. Because we're the nation of Drake, Nelson and Fisher we Brits are quite good at it- and it's one of the few sports in which we stand a reasonable chance of winning gold.  So suddenly this chap I'd never heard of and whose name I continue not to know is a national hero. There was footage of him on the news, sitting in his little cockboat- becalmed- while the other competitors raced past him. And then I remembered that we are also the nation of Charlie Chaplin, Stan Laurel and Mr Bean.

All the build-up, all the hype, all the vast expenditure- and what's it for? It's for a bunch of activities which- in the grand scheme of things- are about as significant as growing prize tomatoes or building models of the House of Commons out of matchsticks. The Olympics is really just the village fete gone global- a multi-billion dollar celebration of hobbyism.




Jackie Fisher- quite a good sailor.

Comments

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

I have no comment on whether the expense and fanfare surrounding the Olympics is worth it, but I know that one of the things I like most about the Olympics is the "unusual" sports -- like Badminton, that I don't get to see played professionally all that often.

I suspect a lot of viewers who aren't sports watchers in general (like me) are the same way. A lot of the appeal is the novelty.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

I most enjoy what I call the "real" Olympic sports: wrestling, discus, archery, racing. I can blank out the national uniforms wahile watching these events, shut off the TV sound, and pretend I am watching these sports in ancient Greece where the prizes were blue ribbons around the waist, perhaps a rabbit and a tripod, as depicted on the vase paintings in the Museum.
I do not appreciate all the political propaganda in today's Olympics.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I used to play badminton. It's a good game.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I believe the Olympics was always political- even (perhaps especially) in ancient Greece.

What exactly is one supposed to do with a rabbit and a tripod? The mind boggles.

[nostoi.livejournal.com]

Ahhhhhhhhh! Sailing.

I was quite excited about their being a club near here. I thought I could slowly and quietly learn to sail, spreading the cost out. But, alas, I was thrown at the first hurdle - I was told I'd have to buy my own boat!

I'm really very glad we got rid of our TV last week - it seems like we picked the very best time to do it.

[nostoi.livejournal.com]

Apparently the prizes differed depending on where the Olympics were held.

Olympia - Crown of wild olive leaves
Delphi - A Laurel crown
Corinth - A pine crown
Nemea - A Wild Celery crown

[butterscotch711.livejournal.com]

I was actually only vaguely aware that Australia got a top 5 spot at the Athens Olympics. A journalist has calculated we spend $37m in funding for each gold medal. That's embarrassing!

I'm sick of athletes who say the Olympics should never be political. I'm like, you get government funding to swim fast, or shoot arrows at a target - what do you think it's about?

[zoe-1418.livejournal.com]

You think of swimming as a minority interest and a hobby for the wealthy? Surely not! It's one of the few sports (running would be another) that don't require any special equipment or facilities to get involved in and enjoy and train (although to compete professionally or in the Olympics is of course a somewhat different story). I would think that the only countries that don't have swimming as a popular, everbody-can-do-it-if-they-want sport would be countries where it's never possible to swim outside in natural bodies of water (I guess some desert nations would fall in this category, and maybe a few extremely northern ones?).

Dressage, though, and sailing -- I'd have to agree about the eliteness of those, in general. (Although I can imagine exceptions.)

[red-girl-42.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way. My biggest disappointment with the Olympics is that the only events I can watch on network TV (I don't have cable) are the popular ones that I can see on TV anytime, anyway.

I'm trying to get my husband to TiVo the judo matches at his office because I passionately love judo but they never show a single match on TV.

They do show the gymnastics on TV, though, which is good because I love watching gymnastics. And diving.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There's not much on these days, is there?

But it keeps me plugged into the zeitgeist- and I value it for that.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

At least if you won at Nemea you could eat the prize.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Athletes are mainly not very smart.....

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of swimming as a spectator sport. There's a difference between liking to swim and wanting to sit poolside and watch other people doing it.

[bodhibird.livejournal.com]

When I find sports, Olympic and otherwise, the most annoying, I try to remind myself that athletic competition, like drama, has its origin in religious ritual. The Greeks held games at funerals; the Mayan ballgame is thought, or was the last time I read about it, to be a cosmological dance, an imitation of the movements of the heavenly bodies.

I try to remind myself, but it doesn't always help. Like theatre and film, for that matter like religious ritual, sport has come far from its origins.